Cisco is looking to get into the online social networking craze. The company announced on Friday it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Five Across, which is a San Francisco-based company. Its platform, called Connect Community Builder, is used by websites to create online communities, which include multimedia sharing, blogs, podcasts, and online profiles.

Five Across maintains an employee base of 11. The acquisition is expected to close during Cisco's third quarter, which ends April 28. Once acquired, Five Across will join the Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), which is managed by Dan Scheinman. Customers of Five Across include the NHL, DailyComedy.com, and Alloy, a teen community site.

BRIAN'S OPINION
Anyone who still considers Cisco a simple network appliance company would be sadly misinformed. Cisco is driving to diversify itself to not only offer hardware to enterprises and consumers, but also wants a hand in offering additional value to the data delivered.

Any technology company that hasn't thought of some way to attach itself to the growing online market of social networking is missing the train. Through the acquisition of Five Across, Cisco is just making sure it gets on that train before it pulls out of the station. MySpace has been able to do what no other company has been able to do before it. MySpace has made itself the cornerstone of social networking on the Internet.

Cisco wants its hands on the next MySpace. Acquiring a company that offers a platform that can do just that is an important step in making sure this could be a possibility. Considering the company is relatively small in the number of employees it has, I would imagine the company will easily be incorporated into the Cisco family.